Page 8 of Rent a Boo

Her eyes fluttered closed and she took a deep breath before she said, “I'm going to make you angry now. Fair warning.”

I tried to brush off the comment and say something to stop her before she got started, but she didn’t let me speak.

She continued. “I am not your biggest fan. Your works are without a doubt flawless. You create beautiful and exquisite paintings that rely on the gimmick of perfection. Your technique is immaculate and undeniable. I have stood before your canvases and genuinely wondered if I could pick up the glass you painted and sip the wine therein, but until today, I never felt your spirit in them. I never looked at a Ben Hoffman painting and thought, I will remember this moment, standing before this painting, feeling overwhelmed by the power, the essence of this man—until right now. I don’t know how to explain what I’m seeing other than to say, these paintings are Ben Hoffman before he built himself a cage and they are fucking glorious.”

She was right.

She made me fucking angry.

Jess

After our little exchange in his childhood studio, Ben went all broody silent treatment. His parents were hosting this sit-down dinner to welcome Ben home. Marla invited friends whom Ben knew growing up on Martha’s Vineyard as a kid as well as friends she and Devin, Ben’s dad, had made over the years. One by one the guests showed up, smiling and joyful, happy to see Ben and meet me. They were a varied crew—a professional skateboarder, a couple of pastry chefs, a librarian, the crew on a local sailing charter, a bookstore owner, music industry people, a party planner, and you know, a billboard chart topper, because that was just normal in Ben’s life. Despite the varied backgrounds of the guests, the vibe was utterly unpretentious.

We gathered in the Hoffmans’ dining room around a huge oak table, sipping wine and eating morsels by candlelight. And it was clear, I was the spectacle. All eyes were on me, wanting to know who the woman was who had captured the heart of the rule-driven, straitlaced artist whom they all seemed to care deeply for but also understood as aloof, with no desire for inclusion. No one exactly said as much, but Ben, who was seated at the head of the table, opposite his father and just to my right, was rarely addressed or engaged. Rather the guests spoke to me, asking a million questions. I answered truthfully, not wanting to get tripped up by a lie later. But I was fairly certain that my truth wasn’t going to do anything to quiet the rift between Ben and me.

“So,” Max, the woman who owned the bookstore and was sitting across the table from me, asked, “Where are you from originally, Jess?”

“Upstate New York, near Albany, but I moved around quite a bit as a kid.”

“Military brat?” asked Max’s husband, Patrick. He owned a bakery in Edgartown that everyone at the table seemed to love.

I shook my head no, as I used my knife to wipe a smear of mashed butternut squash on the bite of chicken I already pushed onto my fork. “I was in the foster care system.”

“Really?” Marla noted, sympathy in her voice. “Was it as terrible as they say?”

Next to me, Ben shifted. I glanced at him. As expected, my honesty was making him more uncomfortable. “It’s not good,” I said matter-of-factly. “But I was fairly lucky. Got out unscarred. And I learned how to rely on myself. The experience gave me the wherewithal to put myself through art school.”

Under the table, Ben’s knee started to bounce like the needle on a sewing machine. I knew he felt that me being an artist was some kind of social faux pas, but that was nonsense.

“Wait,” Devin said “You’re an artist?”

I nodded.

Devin started to laugh under his breath. “I can’t believe it.”

“Why not?” I asked defensively.

Hunter Winston, who was the famous musician and apparently also Ben’s friend since grade school, piped up, “All reigning unsettled debates in the Hoffman house are about art theory. Dev thinks art is born of innate emotional creativity and Ben thinks art is polish and skill, and if you give them the leeway, they will argue each other into the grave.”

Both Ben and Dev started to respond to Hunter’s comment, but I put up my hands—one in each man’s direction, silencing what they were about to say. Without knowing it, Hunter had divulged a tiny piece of info that allowed me to suddenly understand Ben—and his current annoyance at me—a whole lot better. With all eyes on me, I felt compelled to stand between the two men; if I truly loved Ben that was how I would’ve reacted so that was how I should react.

“Question…” I posed my thoughts to the group. “Why can’t both things be true?”

Marla looked to clarify my point. “Why can’t great art be born of emotion and skill?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, obviously it is.” This came from Alice, Hunter’s manager and friend. “There is no great art devoid of emotion, and artistry requires skill.”

“Does it?” Dev asked. “Isn’t Duchamp’sFountaingreat art and it required almost no skill.”

“Wait,” Leah, the librarian, interrupted. “Is Duchamp’sFountaingreat art? I think that point is up for debate.”

Next to me, Hunter sighed. “I cannot believe we are having this discussion again.” Trish, his fiancée, laughed at his impatience.

“I agree. Let’s not have this debate tonight,” Marla lamented. “It never ends well. What else can we talk about? Help me, Jess. What inspires you?”

What I said next wasn’t meant to intentionally make Ben angrier, but it did.

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